The Namibia Vulnerability Assessment and Analysis report of 2021 revealed that about 658 588 people were at risk of food insecurity between October 2021 and December 2021.
The same report also highlighted that the Oshana Region had the lowest number of food insecure people which were estimated at 20 266 people.
Minister of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform Calle Schlettwein said this during the commemoration of World Food Day in the Uukwiyuushona Constituency of the Oshana Region on Saturday.
This year the day was commemorated under the theme ‘Leave no one behind. Better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life for all.’
The minister stated that malnutrition remains a major development concern, affecting all regions of the country and impacting the most vulnerable segments of the population.
(NAMPA)
2 (NAIROBI,17 OCT, AFP) – Authorities in Ethiopia’s rebel-held Tigray region announced Sunday they would respect a ceasefire as fighting intensified in the country’s war-torn north, and the African Union called for an immediate truce.
International concern is growing around the fate of Shire, a city of 100,000 people in northwest Tigray, where Ethiopian and Eritrean troops have launched a joint offensive and civilian casualties have been reported.
UN chief Antonio Guterres has joined the United States and other Western powers in voicing alarm over the worsening violence and called for a peaceful settlement to ‘this catastrophic conflict’.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and the Tigrayan authorities have accepted an AU invitation to talk, but negotiations set for last weekend in South Africa failed to materialise and no new date has been announced.
On Sunday, AU Commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat urged the warring sides to ‘recommit to dialogue as per their agreement to direct talks to be convened in South Africa’.
AFP
3 (TEHRAN,17 OCT, AFP) – The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards accused the West of a cultural ‘invasion’ of Iranian schools, amid protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
Iran has been rocked by demonstrations since the death of 22-year-old Amini was announced on September 16, after her arrest for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.
The street violence has led to dozens of deaths, mostly of protesters but also members of the security forces, and gatherings have been reported in schools across the country.
‘The riots are a path that has come from strategic think tanks in America and England which has spread to our classrooms,’ Major General Hossein Salami was quoted as saying on the Guards’ Sepah News website.
‘Today the enemy has opened a new area of cultural, political and security invasion… this is the most complex and mysterious battlefield where the enemy has a serious presence,’ he said.
AFP
4 (ATHENS, 17 OCT, AFP) – Ninety-two migrants were found almost naked and bruised after allegedly being forced across the Evros river from Turkey into Greece, Athens said Sunday.
EU border agency Frontex confirmed to AFP the arrival of the group in circumstances which the Greek ministry for civil protection said sent out an ‘inhuman image.’
‘The Frontex officers reported that the migrants were found almost naked and some of them with visible injuries,’ said Paulina Bakula, spokeswoman for the organisation.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said in a tweet that it was ‘deeply distressed by the shocking reports and images of 92 people, who were reported to have been found at the Greek-Turkish land border, stripped of their clothes’.
Bakula, speaking from Frontex’s Warsaw HQ, said Frontex officers worked with Greek authorities to provide the migrants — mainly Afghans and Syrians — with immediate assistance.
AFP
5 (DOHA, 17 OCT, AFP) – Qatar said Sunday that more than 1.5 million people have applied for the compulsory pass for the football World Cup, that begins on November 20.
Saad Al-Suwaidi, head of the Hayya pass service, said that between 1.5 million and 1.7 million people have so far applied for the card, that acts as a visa, match ticket, transport ticket and gives access to some fan zones.
All travellers to Qatar will need the pass to enter from November 1, whether they intend to watch a game or not.
Qatar has said it expects more than one million foreign visitors, as well as hundreds of thousands of domestic fans.
International supporters have to apply for the pass after buying tickets and securing accommodation.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
